Wage gap: NC women earn 80.9 percent of men's wages

Saturday

“I believe the world needs stay-at-home moms but it also needs women who aren’t afraid to do whatever amazing job it is they need to do.”

Compared to the rest of the U.S., North Carolina received a grade of C when it comes to the gender wage gap.

In a study published releasing data on the wage gap in 2016, published by the state and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, statistics on things like women workforce participation and available jobs were studied. And while progress is being made for women in the workplace, things are moving slowly.

Fernando Quijano, instructor of economics at Coastal Carolina Community College, said there’s multiple factors that play into the wage gap. At least half of cases stem from gender discrimination, he said.

Quijano is a big believer in wage negotiations, however, and said he can understand why women in certain fields would be hesitant to negotiate or might not feel worthy of a raise.

“There are certain stereotypes in careers that are male-dominated,” Quijano said. “Women tend to be punished for negotiating wages in an interview in some fields.”

And while some career fields continue to employ one gender over the other, women in Eastern North Carolina are more impacted by the jobs available than these issues. According to Jennifer Clark, director of communications for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the study shows women in North Carolina typically need more education to have access to good-paying jobs than men do.

“There’s lots of jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree that are well-paying but male-dominated, like construction or carpentry,” Clark said.

Of course, that doesn’t discount the level of education carried by women in the workforce. Clark said women make more at each level of education, which makes it so important.

“However, when you go up that ladder and look at men’s earnings too you can just see that men get more of a return,” Clark said.

Data in Onslow County, for example, shows a nearly $20,000 difference in salaries for men with graduate degrees versus women.

Quijano said while most people wouldn’t think of this trend being something prevalent in academia, there is still a perceived discrimination embedded there.

In general, men tend to be perceived as more valuable and efficient in the workplace, he added. Quijano said studies done on evaluations of men and women completing the same task showed people considered the men’s work to be better almost every time.

“If you become aware of these factors, there are ways to counter them with good government policy,” Quijano said.

A mandated transparency of wage data, he said, might help. The government would ask people to reveal wage data and how much their employees are making. This would add to women’s awareness of what their colleagues’ salaries are, he said.

Salaries across ENC are also impacted by who is writing the check — understanding where the bulk of the jobs are helps explain why the salary ratio is better in some areas than others. For example, Onslow County’s earnings ratio is 93 percent, but Carteret has the lowest ratio in the area at 79.9 percent. Statewide, the ratio of women's to men's earnings is 80.9 percent.

The largest employers in Onslow, though are the Department of Defense and the government, which do not experience a wage gap. In Carteret, the largest industry is retail, with 4,541 working in that field, according to N.C. Works.

Lindsay Gress, director of N.C. Works for Onslow and Carteret counties, said Onslow also employs a high number of retail employees. These wages, she said, also contribute to data surrounding the wage gap.

“We have lower wages in Onslow County because of that; we don’t have many of the higher corporate-type jobs,” Gress said.

By comparison, the largest employing industry in Craven County is public administration, with 6,806 employees. The largest employing industry in Lenoir County is manufacturing, with more than 8,000 employees.

The IWPR study also looked at high-ranking employers across the state, with the highest number of women employed in jobs for office and administrative support. Of all workers, 71.4 percent of workers in office jobs were women, according to the report. Meanwhile in construction, natural resources or maintenance jobs, only 4.3 percent of workers in the field being women.

Overall, the majority of women work in the private sector, according to the report. Government jobs are not as populated by women in North Carolina, with 8.7 percent of women employed by the state government, 6.1 percent in local government jobs and 2.1 percent in federal government jobs.

One woman in a local government positions, Lenoir County Chairman Linda Rouse Sutton, said she has seen things moving in a positive direction.

“I’m just glad to see the strides that have been made, and glad that women in all professions are recognized now,” Rouse Sutton said.

Early in her career, Rouse Sutton worked in the department of administration and budget division in Raleigh. She said she probably saw more gender discrimination then, in the 1970s, than throughout her career.

“It was sort of an unwritten rule you have to put forth twice the effort to be acknowledged and recognized and we’ve come a long way from that,” Rouse Sutton said.

Before serving on the board of commissioners, Rouse Sutton said she worked many part-time jobs as her children were growing up. And she then took on a position as a training coordinator for the state and youth development center.

This pattern is not something that’s uncommon, according to data provided by the IWPR , with the most common reason for taking part-time work cited as “other reasons” such as seasonal work, health and medical limitations. And for some women, this includes taking time off to spend more time with their children.

Quijano said that this can be an issue for working women, who want to balance work and family life.

“Motherhood is highly punished in the world out there,” Quijano said.

But sometimes, this goes the opposite direction. In general, Quijano said single women are preferred over married women by employers. But married men are preferred over single men.

Childcare is also a big consideration for working women, according to the IWPR study.

“There are large disparities, however, in the share of women and men who cite child care problems or other family or personal obligations; over 22 percent of women point to these issues, compared with about four percent of men,” stated the study.

The data, according to the study, shows a lack of federal and state policies for paid family and medical leave that support those “balancing employment and caregiving responsibilities” might be the reason more women are forced into taking part-time work.

But that’s not to say working full-time and handling childcare isn’t possible.

Sheri Slater, the assistant county manager for Onslow County, said she was able to continue her career in social work and senior services while her children were growing up because she had a support system from her husband and colleagues.

“The team that I worked with in the early days, you didn’t even have to ask … somebody would come up and say ‘What do you need me to do?’” Slater said.

She said she and her fellow social workers often stepped up for each other while one was working a case beyond the “normal” close of business time.

And while she said she did not face much gender discrimination in her field — it was prominently women while she was working for DSS — she has seen changes in the perceptions of certain careers.

“There’s all sorts of fields that open up when you quit looking at it as a gender-related issue,” Slater said.

Slater said in social work, for example, more men have been taking jobs in DSS work. In government, she’s seen county managers and assistant county managers include more women, especially as she worked in higher positions as the senior services director and assistant county manager, director of human services.

Currently, the Onslow County management team is 50 percent women; two men and two women. The Onslow County Board of Commissioners, however, does not have any female representation.

Rouse Sutton is the only woman on the Lenoir BOC and E.T. Mitchell is the sole woman in the Craven County BOC. Attempts to reach Mitchell for comment were unsuccessful.

Overall, improvements in workplace equality might be more visible than those in wage equality, but Clark said this process is a slow one.

The IWPR study predicted equal wages in North Carolina by 2060.

“Women would bring in so much more money if they were paid the same as men; that’s a 19 percent raise,” Clark said.

The gap, she added, hurts the economy with $16 billion in wages missing in North Carolina due to the wage gap. For those like Slater, their salaries are determined by government budgets and the gap is not so prevalent.

But Slater said she hopes to see success for her children, no matter what careers they pursue.

“I believe the world needs stay-at-home moms but it also needs women who aren’t afraid to do whatever amazing job it is they need to do,” Slater said.

The Wage Gap in NCInfogram

Reporter Kelsey Stiglitz can be reached at 910-219-8453 or kstiglitz@JDNews.com. For digital subscription information, click here.

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